Hi, Has does anyone else have trouble removing their wheels? I did it today for the 1st time since owning the car to change the rear pads. After removing the studs I had to kick the wheel then rock it side to side to get it off! When it eventually came off I had a look at the inside of the wheel and the corrosion was immense! Caused by the lead hub cap no doubt, surely Skoda know lead and alloy dont mix. Anyone else experienced this?

Edited 11 January, 201214 yr by 07 vRS Taxi

Yes a common problem, 1st time i removed mine I had to loosen studs then go forwards and backwards to break the "seal" pur thin film of copper grease on now :yes:

I greased mine up too. It may be a recall waiting to happen when it eats all the way through and wheels start to fall off! Quite abit dust came off with the wire brush.

Common fault after 40 years in the trade it has never been any different. Use copease grease on faces, make sure none gets on the threadss of the wheel bolts.

It is best to remove wheels on a regular basis, and clean and re grease, but only use a very thin smear.

Why do you have to make sure you don't get it on threads? I've known people grease those too.

Yeah somehow the corrosion seemed to have spread to the studs they were thick of the hard white dust and starting to rust I copper greased them as it says you can on the tube.

You can grease the threads but it's not advisable to grease the contact surface for the bolt.

Pretty dam sure the cap isn't lead, but anyhow the hub is steel and the wheel aluminium so it will corrode anyhow. As Spectrum said earlier it's been an issue for all my working life.

I very much doubt its lead.....

This is known as galvanic corrosion, where two different metals are in close contact and are exposed to an electrolyte solution (salt spray from the road) they will corrode and tend to 'stick' together.

Best plan is to us a smear of copper-slip on the contact faces so that the steel and alloy are separated. No more problems!

At the last service my indy had terrible trouble getting the wheels off. Had some choice words to say about the Skoda main dealer who had never put any slip on the contact faces.

It is strongly NOT recommended to put any lubrication on the threads of the wheel studs - the handbook torque settings are based on dry threads, and using the same torque with lubricated threads could lead to 4x the correct shank tension being applied to the studs. While these have plenty of safety margin, its certainly not a good thing.

the grease on the threads acts like a hydraulic effect once tightened , increasing the torque on the bolt, i believe

Surely it wouldnt harm to grease then wipe the threads...Surely clogged dry and rusted threads can also affect torque settings

There is NO need to put copper slip on all of the "contact faces" this may even prevent the wheel tightening up fully (as the grease will be in the way.

What is recommended however is put copper slip on the centre bore of the wheel - this is where the corrosion gives you all the trouble anyway!

Never had any trouble getting a wheel off. I find in fact that with the studs out it just falls off as soon as you let go of it!

That's why I did my post a while back on making and using un-headed studs to help locate and replace the wheel.

Copperslip is very good - have used it for years on hub AND wheel nuts without any loosening up trouble, though I do always use a torque wrench for replacement of the wheel nuts.

In about 500,000 miles driving & doing my own servicing & maint I have always been in the habit of putting a squirt of lube oil on the threads, this has never caused any problems.

The only time I experienced this galvanic corrision problem was when the Galaxy was new, a puncture & I virtually failed to get the bloody alloy wheel off.

I could not :no: believe how well it was stuck.

Common fault after 40 years in the trade it has never been any different. Use copease grease on faces, make sure none gets on the threadss of the wheel bolts.

It is best to remove wheels on a regular basis, and clean and re grease, but only use a very thin smear.

^ What this guy says!